


DS4 Halloween Oneshot

by Barabahad



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Dark Souls (Video Games), Persona 4
Genre: Blood and Violence, F/M, Horror, Romance, in that exact order.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 12:37:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21253520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barabahad/pseuds/Barabahad
Summary: Rise decides to try and get into the Halloween spirit by dragging her self-appointed bodyguard, Astaire, along to the theatre for a night of horror-tinged fun.As they take their leave, however, strange things begin to happen around them under the cover of night.As the title suggests, a fun little non-canon Halloween oneshot based on my main fic, Darksoulna 4.





	DS4 Halloween Oneshot

The theatre’s audience let out a wail as the action on-screen unfolded in all its gory glory. Boyfriends tried their best to resist doing the same, some better than others, while girlfriends took the opportunity to cling to arms, put heads on shoulders, and generally canoodle under the cover of darkness a movie theatre usually provided. 

Rise Kujikawa was no exception.  _ “Oh my god!”  _ She contained in a harsh whisper, wrapping both her arms around the thick sleeve of the boy next to her, squeezing tightly in hopes that she’d get a reaction out of him. “I’m not sure I can make it all the way through this… What do you think, Astaire-kun?” She asked, calculating exactly which angle would be the cutest one to attack from. 

Sadly, her attempts fell on deaf ears. Or blind eyes, maybe, because Astaire sat in what almost amounted to a trance as he watched the movie with unrelenting focus. The arm and hand that Rise  _ wasn’t  _ occupying instead set about stroking his chin thoughtfully, as though he were assessing whether or not he would stand a chance in a fight against the nightmarish creatures which came on-screen with every new scene. 

At his side, Rise pouted. She hadn’t dragged him all the way to the movies this close to Halloween to actually  _ watch  _ movies, nobody did that! It was for sharing snacks and doing all manner of mushy, romantic stuff in relative secrecy, darn it! Stupid knight-brain. 

Oh well, she at least had the considerable mass of his arm to make do with. See as he wasn’t reacting to anything else she did, Rise took the opportunity to reposition herself slightly, ducking her head under the arm she’d been holding so that it rested neatly around her shoulders, and letting her lean in that little bit closer to him. 

Eh, this was nice enough for now. After all, she had a plan B.

  
  


***

  
  


“I-I’m so sorry about that!” Astaire blustered and bowed after leaving the theatre, so forcefully and so often that Rise was surprised his eyes didn’t pop out of his head and roll away. The act felt somewhat odd to him, however, considering he didn’t actually  _ remember  _ doing anything he was apologising for. “I never meant to act so…  _ intimate,  _ much less in public! I’ll be sure to avoid having it happen again!” 

In their dark little recess, out of view of most of the other patrons, Rise set her Plan B into motion. She crossed her arms and pouted. “Honestly! Trying to get so  _ touchy-feely _ in front of everyone else… I had no idea you were  _ that  _ kind of guy, Astaire-kun.” She turned her head away from him, partly to make sure the act looked legitimate and partly to conceal a small giggle she couldn’t hold back. 

She was giggling more than Astaire was, that was for certain. His face went white as a sheet at the implication. “I assure you, s-such behaviour is unbecoming of a Warrior of Sunlight! It must’ve been a minor lapse of focus, or somesuch! If…” Rise’s ears perked up. Was he going to say it? Had her plan worked? 

“If there’s aught I can do to reaffirm your trust in me, I would do so in a heartbeat.” 

_ Bingo.  _

Wait, wait, careful not to look  _ too  _ happy about it for now. Rise cleared her throat and turned back to him, raising a mischievous eyebrow. “Anything, huh?  _ Anything  _ I want?” 

“Without question.” Astaire nodded.

Hook, line and sinker. Unable to resist the urge any longer, Rise jolted to Astaire’s side again and wrapped her arms around his left sleeve, much like she’d done a few minutes prior. “How about you start by walking me home? Taking the long way, too.” 

Astaire’s mouth hung open for a moment. Partly because of the fact that Rise was clinging to him and staring up with eyes that could melt a glacier, and partly because it seemed like an odd way to make up for getting touchy-feely. Getting touchy-feely… on the walk home. Actually, come to think of it, wasn’t this somewhat  _ worse  _ than doing so in a theatre? Granted it was dark out, and not many people seemed to be around, but…

“So… shall we go?” Rise asked with a squeeze of his arm. 

Oh, sod it. “If that’s what you desire, yes. Let’s be off.” 

  
  


***

What Rise described as ‘the long way’ back to their hotel was, in her scheming mind, quite the romantic little stroll, especially under the long-hanging shroud of a chilly October night. Reasons aplenty to huddle close together.  _ Perfect.  _ What better setting to get a big, dense, sword-swinging lug nut in the right kind of mood? 

“You were really getting into that movie back there.” Rise piped up as she guided Astaire through the barely-lit pathways, glancing at the rose bushes and the long-bare branches of overhead cherry blossom trees as they walked. “Think you could take one of them on? A werewolf?” 

Part of Astaire’s movie-fresh brain wanted to correct her that they hadn’t exactly  _ been  _ werewolves in the context of the film, but that was beside the point. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, and finally settled on a resounding “I’m unsure.” 

Well,  _ that  _ was rare. “You’re  _ unsure?  _ Really? You’ve fought bigger and scarier things than a werewolf before! You fought an  _ actual  _ wolf with a sword! Why would you be unsure?!” Rise said, rocking Astaire’s arm about in protest, as though she wanted him to root for himself just as much as she often did. 

“There’s a great deal of difference between a solitary wolf, and some godless amalgamation of wolf  _ and man. _ ” A brisk breeze came howling through the bushes and trees, almost as though choiring in agreement. “Both are crafty and dangerous enough on their own. I can’t imagine what a combination of the two would be like.”

Pheh. Rise guessed he had a point. But even still, he could work himself up just a  _ little,  _ right? Maybe a little push was all he required. “What if one was coming after me? Think you could beat one then?” She asked with a wink. 

A wink which was answered with a confident nod. “I wouldn’t accept any other outcome.” 

_ Kyaa~,  _ that was more like it. Rise hugged his arm and lay her head into his shoulder. “Heehee. I thought you’d say something like that.” The chill wind picked up once more, and this time had seemingly gone from a light tap to a meaningful push where force was concerned. The little army of icy daggers nipped at Rise’s side, uttering a shiver from her. “Brr! It’s so cold all of a sudden!” 

Despite wearing a coat thick enough to stop a point-blank gunshot, Astaire huddled down into his collar and clenched his fists. “G-Gods, you’re right. I daresay it hasn’t been this bad all…” He trailed off. 

Never one to turn down an opportunity, Rise began trying to worm her fingers in between Astaire’s. You know, for  _ warmth.  _ But she was halted in her efforts as Astaire bolted himself - and her, by extension - around to face where they’d just walked from. “Ah! What’s the big idea?!” 

Something was amiss. Astaire could smell it on the strengthening wind. Something offended the senses, and it was something which hadn’t done so the first time it picked up. Meaning that whatever was giving off the stench was getting closer. Worse yet, it was an odour which he was keenly familiar with. 

The smell of a decomposing corpse.

It was only as his adrenaline levels begin to spike in anticipation that Astaire realised how exposed he and Rise were. Bushes and trees obscured sections of his vision, which was already hampered by the dark of the night rendering everything a moderate distance away completely black. If something - or Gods forbid, some _ things -  _ were watching them, there was no telling where they were, or how many were out there. Not until they showed themselves.

But they didn’t. 

“Eugh, gross! Do you smell that?!” Rise gagged, pinching her nostrils shut with her fingers before lowering her brow in thought. “Wait a minute. Aww, shoot! I completely forgot!” 

Naturally raising the question, “Forgot what, exactly?” Astaire was careful not to remove his field of view from the shadows beyond them as he spoke, just in case. 

“I heard about it on the news a little while ago when I was prepping for rehearsal, they put something called a ‘Carrion Plant’ in here to try and ward off insects and stuff, and people were complaining about how much it reeked instead!” Rise risked taking a breath in the hopes that none of the stench would secretly seep through into the back of her nose. “Darn it! If I’d remembered it was here I wouldn’t have tried to go this way! Really ruins the mood.” 

So… it was a plant that smelled like a decomposing corpse? Not an actual one? Seemed a bit of an odd thing to place in a park, to Astaire’s mind, but perhaps that was why he was a bodyguard and not a park manager. 

All the same, he let out a relieved sigh as all the tension in his muscles loosened at once. “How unfortunate. I suppose we’ll just have to carry on until it can no longer soil the air.” But frankly, any explanation he  _ didn’t  _ have to lock swords with was fortunate in its own right. Mind at ease, if only for the moment, Astaire and Rise turned back towards their original route and briskly resumed their stroll with noses pinched and cheeks puffed out.

  
  


***

The night continued to grow colder. The foulest stench of the Carrion Plant was dulling in the air, replaced instead with the wispy clouds of breath from the young couple as they forged their way onward through the park, passing by the desolate, moonlit outlines of children’s play equipment off to their side. 

All the while, Astaire’s eyes couldn’t sit still. Doubts aplenty plagued him, and only piled up higher as he looked over every crevice, corner, nook and cranny around he and Rise both. There was a tingle up his back, like a bony finger caressing the nape of his neck, telling him that  _ something  _ wasn’t right. 

“Will you cut that out? It’s not funny.” Rise pouted up at him, her fingers locked between his with a vice grip she didn’t intend on loosening as she gave him a squeeze. “Don’t be a jerk, Astaire-kun.” 

“I’m not trying to be funny, nor a jerk.” He assured her, jerking his head around for another look at the horizon, or what little of it remained. “I’m simply being cautious.” 

‘Cautious’ wasn’t exactly the mood Rise had been gunning for all night. So far it had felt less like a scenic little saunter under the moonlight and more like having her hand held across the world’s widest road. 

Evidently, she had to be a little more proactive than usual. “G-Gosh, it just keeps getting colder!” She complained, like the crack of a gun announcing the start of her latest scheme. With the hand that wasn’t occupied with her bodyguard’s hand, she quickly unfastened the buttons on the front of his coat before quickly whisking herself inside and under its thick, thermal walls and wrapping her arms around the black shirt occupying Astaire’s torso. “Mind warming me up?” 

Astaire said nothing. In fact, he didn’t react at all.

Alright,  _ something  _ was up. This kind of thing  _ always  _ got a reaction from him. Rise peeked out from under Astaire’s arm to find that his line of sight was thoroughly trained on the play equipment a short way off. His head didn’t budge, not even slightly. “I-Is something wrong?” 

It had escaped Rise’s notice, preoccupied as her mind was with flights of fancy and romance, that the ambience of the still night had been interrupted. It had not escaped Astaire’s. 

It was a feeble noise. Quiet, unassuming. The average person passing by it mightn’t even have taken notice of it. But unfathomable time spent in Lordran’s harrowing, death-riddled depths had given Astaire an especially sensitive ear for potential danger. 

A swing. A swing was the source. Ever since the play equipment had come into view, the park had been silent, save for he and Rise making their way through. Now, there was creaking. The supports holding the swing to its frame, rusted from excessive use and the wearing down from nature, let out an infrequent, metallic creak as the seat gently oscillated to and fro. 

The breeze had not picked up again. Nobody else had been present. So something had to have jostled it.

Where the tension in Astaire’s body had escaped earlier, it now rushed back in spades, and began guiding his hand toward the Bottomless Box strapped to his side. Or where it was  _ usually  _ strapped to his side, because his knuckles brushed up against something soft which let out a squeak of protest, momentarily drawing his attention away as he looked down to meet Rise’s increasingly concerned expression. “A-Astaire-kun, you’re scaring me…” She uttered. It seemed the mood shift had finally hit her. 

What fuss he might’ve made in response to Rise’s arms being wrapped around him, Astaire forcefully shoved to the back of his mind. “Move aside. Quickly, please.” 

Rise’s grasp gradually began to shift from ‘adoring embrace’ to ‘worried grasping’ as she met the stony, serious look in Astaire’s burning orange eyes. “W-What? Why?” 

Another sound wrenched Astaire’s attention away before he could answer. Again, from the swing’s direction. Not from the swing itself, this time. It wasn’t a metallic sound, more organic. Like shifting dirt. 

A thick layer of thickly-chipped bark carpeted the confines of the play area, presumably a preferred equivalent to brick or concrete. 

_ Until it began to shift.  _

Astaire instinctively began backing away, wrapping his arm around Rise as he brought her back with him. 

It was one small patch at first. Shifting and displacing, and gradually growing more violent as the seconds rolled by in slow motion. One shifting patch became two. Four. Ten. 

“W-What the hell…?” Rise trembled as her eyes bulged out of her skull. She retreated further behind Astaire as a low, muffled noise began emanating from underfoot. The layers of bark and dirt made comprehension difficult, but it was a low, guttural, drawn-out sound. Like moaning. 

At last, one of the shifting piles gave way to something.

A fingernail. A finger. A hand. _ A rotting, decomposing forearm.  _ Followed by what seemed like hundreds of others in turn. 

The stench that had pervaded the air before, the smell of necrotic flesh rotting and barely clinging to long-dead bones, came back tenfold. Rise tried to utter a scream, but terror took the sound before she made it. She couldn’t move. She barely remembered to breathe. Reality as she knew it had been flipped upside-down, and there was no guarantee that she'd be able to right herself.

A violent jostling that threw her whole body forward shook her out of her wide-eyed daze. “We need to get a move on! The longer we wait around like this, the sooner they might blindside us!” Astaire had latched tightly onto her hand and shot off like a bullet down the park’s main thoroughfare. “Where will we find ourselves if we continue running this way?!” 

Oh, god. Oh, god. Everything was moving so quickly. White noise filled Rise’s ears as she threw her all into sprinting for her life. Her laboured, panicked breaths just barely poking through the haze. There was no room for thought. No time. The only thing she could think about was escaping whatever was crawling out of the ground behind them. 

“Ms. Kujikawa, please!” A distant voice pierced through the veil of confusion, fear and static. 

“C-City!” She managed to belt out. 

The city was closer to the hotel they called home than the park was, at least, and that was all Astaire needed to know. 

***

The further Rise and Astaire ran, the worse everything seemed to get. Nothing they could see, because that would’ve been far too easy to cope with. Things instead preferred to unfold just outside their field of vision, either under the cover of darkness, or within the confines of the thick, heavy fog which began slathering the landscape, cutting their field of vision even shorter. 

Where visual stimuli was absent, aural stimuli stepped in to fill the void. The sounds of dirt shifting, and concrete cracking. Low, sustained moans sounded out around them in chorus. Shifting, shuffling feet in pursuit. How quickly, they couldn’t say, for there were too many of them to discern a pattern of any kind, but that only made filling the blank spots in their imagination more terrifying.

But worst of all, something beyond the grave-risen masses was out there. Astaire could tell. There was an undertone of  _ something else  _ hiding itself underneath the emissions of necrosis that assaulted their senses, but he couldn’t say  _ what,  _ exactly. The odour akin to a mass grave, he was familiar with. But whatever else was out there eluded him entirely. It smelled vaguely damp, with a vague hint of sweat underneath. 

Whatever the hell it was, he didn’t care. He just prayed it wasn’t going to catch up to Rise or himself. 

Just then, a brief glimmer of hope. Light. Not the all-too-infrequent lamps dotting the park’s main pathway, but the light from street lights, store windows, and apartments held aloft by mighty stone skyscrapers. They were all dulled and faded as they tried to wade through the fog and catch Astaire and Rise’s eyes, but they were clear enough.

“M-Ms. Kujikawa, we’re out!” Astaire quietly enthused as the clacks of his shoes fell upon the gum-stained concrete of a sidewalk. “Now we need only wade through this damnable fog…” He gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes, trying to pierce the obscuring walls of grey. 

“This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” Rise chanted into the back of his coat, leaving tear stains as she went. She didn’t sob or cry outwardly, the tears simply flowed on their own. Attempting to take some solace in being out of the darkness, she glanced to her left, down a street which ended, like the rest of them, in thick, grey fog. 

Her grip on Astaire’s hand intensified as she saw shapes begin to manifest from within it. 

They moved like people, but not quite. They wavered heavily from side to side, dragging their feet but never lifting them, and ended in places that most people didn’t end in. Missing arms. Missing scalps. Torsos with missing legs dragged themselves along the ground with fingers missing flesh.

Oh, god.  **OH, GOD. ** _ “Astaire-kun…!”  _ Rise managed to squeak out, turning him to face where she was facing. 

The sight staggered Astaire back on his heels. “Gods above. How many of them  _ are  _ there?” He dared to ask. He immediately regretted doing so as he spotted another mass of lumbering silhouettes out of the corner of his eye, eclipsing the path they had only just come from through the park’s gated entryway. 

Two paths of escape cut off. That left two more, one heading straight on and the other to their left, both seeming just as bad as the other. Just because there were no doddering undead hordes down them didn’t mean they weren’t there, just that they were unseeable. It was ostensibly the toss of a coin.

The coin landed, and Astaire chose to bolt straight on ahead, grasping Rise’s hand as tightly as he dared. 

***

Forging headlong into the fog, Astaire’s eyes didn’t stop scanning all around them. “Now that we’re out of that park, perhaps we can find help somewhere! The more people we have, the better!” 

But one thing, aside from the obvious, was beginning to worry Rise all the more as they trudged through the fog. Looking down at their feet, she occasionally spotted painted white lines underfoot, meaning they must’ve been sprinting down the centre of a road of some sort. 

But there were no cars. No people. They hadn’t even come across a functioning traffic light. Hell, there wasn’t even any cars  _ parked  _ at the side of the road, either. It was like the entire city had just up and abandoned the place in an instant. “I… I don’t think that’s going to happen, somehow.” Rise lamented. “Couldn’t you just fight them all off yourself? You could take them on, I know you can!” 

“And risk leaving you out in the open like this? Perish the thought. The moment we’ve nowhere else to run, or I find somewhere to keep you safe,  _ then  _ I’ll consider it.” 

Under normal circumstances such a declaration might’ve given Rise a case of the stomach butterflies. Now, it just made her feel nauseous, thinking about the position they were in, and how little hope seemed to be slipping through the cracks in it. 

Suddenly, an undead female, clad in a dressing gown, bolted out of the grey and made a beeline for Astaire with a screech, which Rise quickly mirrored in turn. 

Thankfully, such an eventuality was why Astaire had made sure to keep his  _ left  _ hand occupied by Rise. He launched a jab at the monster’s face, connecting with a sickening squish as putrefied flesh gave way easily under the force and split apart entirely, coating his hand in gore. 

_ “Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod.”  _ The skull caving in with ease. The headless corpse now at her feet. The remains of it plastering Astaire’s hand, viscous and sticky. All things came together and hitched Rise’s breaths even higher than they had been before. She was hyperventilating. Her hands came to her face and brushed her cheeks. Her legs began to shake. She began to consider the possibility that  _ this may actually have been the last night of her life.  _

The next thing she knew, Astaire was knelt down in front of her. “I know this is horrific, Ms. Kujikawa, but fretting about it is only going to worsen things. You need to try and steel yourself, as hard as it is.” But saying it was simple. Actually  _ doing  _ it was another matter. Exhaling, Astaire raised his clean hand and placed it atop Rise’s head, patting her gently. “There, there. Don’t worry. On my honour as a Warrior of Sunlight, I’ll see us out of this.” 

The warmth of his hand was welcomed heartily. Rise managed a nod, and dried her eyes with the end of her sleeve. “Okay. I’ll try.” She said quietly. 

The moment was cut short as another sprinting undead raced out of the fog, just as quickly as the other one. The difference now, however, was that Astaire had freed his other hand. Quick as could be, the zombie was parted in twain across the centre of its torso, owed to the considerable mass of Astaire’s Zweihander cutting his extended life back down to size.

Another two followed after him. And another three after them, all from different angles. 

However, true to his word, Astaire threw everything he had into swatting them off. Just as Rise felt one of them getting too close, they’d be crushed, cut, stabbed or thrashed into unrecognisable piles of flesh and bone on the ground. But still they kept coming, and only in bigger droves. 

There wasn’t a moment for Astaire to catch his breath, only time to grunt and roar at the foes coming to face him. Preparing or planning ahead was made difficult as the fog obscured the corpses’ lines of attack. 

Rise backed away slowly. If they were in the middle of a street, there had to be some building or another off to the side where they could take refuge. Somewhere with sturdy doors and heavy locks, or a barricade of some kind. 

Her back hit against something. Something hard, and tall. Whipping around, her eyes lit up for what felt like the first time in years. The entrance to the underground, home of subways and malls alike. “Astaire-kun, I’ve got it! We need to duck in here real quick!” 

From the looks of things, he’d finally run out of undead nuisances to shred up. He stood doubled over, Zweihander resting its tip on the ground and undulating lightly as he caught his breath. Even as the sweat ran down his face and neck, he kept his head up and at the ready. He was ready to back off towards Rise, when something caught his eye. 

A sprinting undead once again came from within the fog, but it wasn’t aiming for him. It came in one side of his field of view, then sprinted out of the other. “What on earth…?” 

Screams aplenty came from the side of the fog he’d shot into. Astaire began willing his sword up at first, thinking they were heading his way. But they were cut short. All of them. 

_ Something else was killing them off as well.  _

“We need to scarper. Now.” 

***

Stepping into the underground was like a breath of fresh air. Although the lights ranged between ‘flickering’ and ‘off entirely’, not having the fog lying about meant that visibility was better by far. Furthermore, it provided possibly the best advantage they could’ve asked for. “We’re only a couple of stops away from the station closest to our hotel!” Rise squealed in delight as her finger scanned over a map of the subway lines, mounted securely to the wall. “Maybe we can run across the tracks and get back that way! Somehow I don’t think anyone’s going to be manning the trains right now.” 

“These hallways appear sparse of undead, too, blessedly.” Astaire sighed. “Perhaps this may work after all.” 

“Only one way to find out, right?” Rise enthused, thankfully with a bit more colour in her face as she rejoined her hand with Astaire’s. “Let’s get down to the platform!” 

Their footsteps reverberated around the halls as they tore down each one with intent, with Rise taking the lead for once. Still no zombies in sight. Even still, Astaire’s guard didn’t drop. Two openings for the male and female toilets. Passed by safely. A branching hallway to the left, leading to who-knows-where. Nothing. A darkened shop with a large, glass front. Noth--

As Rise darted by the glass, it suddenly shattered and caved outward. A zombie dressed in the garb of a security guard flailed, wailed, and outstretched its one remaining arm towards Rise, who let out a scream before Astaire tackled it to the ground. He raised his sword blade-up towards the ceiling, then brought the pommel down on the writhing guard’s head, scattering pieces of flesh, bone and brain over the floor. 

Rise’s breaths started becoming more frequent yet again. “They’re still down here. We just haven’t seen them.” She grimly realised. 

The echoes of more footsteps beyond their own came from further down the hall. “Damn it all! Run for it!” Astaire bellowed as he started Rise down the hallway again, only to remember that it wasn’t him who’d memorised their route to the platform, a fact he realised all too quickly as he came to a two-way junction. “Which way now, Ms. Kujikawa?!” 

She could hear them getting closer. The echoes were getting louder, and there was a  _ lot  _ to echo. Footfalls and screams and gurgles and  _ oh god this wasn’t going to work was it? _ What remnants of a happier mood she’d been cultivating for the past few minutes were trampled immediately, and the silent tears began flowing again. 

Seeing the state Rise was in, Astaire didn’t feel comfortable trying to shake her out of it once more. He glanced down each corridor, readying the mental coin flip once more, before a third option caught his eye. To Rise, it might’ve said ‘Supply Storeroom’, but to Astaire’s illiterate eyes, it was simply the closest door they had to dart into. He tried the handle. Locked. He tried reeling back his foot and slamming mercilessly into the handle. Unlocked. Or broken, either was applicable. He quickly hustled Rise and himself inside before slamming the door behind them. 

Thankfully, the storeroom wasn’t a claustrophobic little closet, but a fairly sizable, long room with shelving units on either side. All the better to barricade a door with, as Astaire readily found out. “Now we can just…” Hup, slide, plant the shelves against the door. “...wait for them to pass. And if they decide not to, I can simply head out there and deal with them while you remain safe and sound.” 

His plan fell on barely-listening ears. In lieu of sobs, Rise’s tears were paired with occasional shudders and shakes as she stared at the ground and clutched at her elbows, lips trembling and teeth chattering. 

Astaire bit a lip. Seeing her like this was rougher on him than any horde of night creatures was. All the more reason to get out of the situation alive. 

The echoes from the hall slowly ceased being echoes as whatever godless horde of nightmares that had been chasing them finally caught up. Moans, screams and gurgles were held back by a mere inch or so of medium-density fibreboard and a set of shelves propped against it. There were no scratches or bangs at the door, but the sounds of the undead masses didn’t exactly move on, either. They knew Rise and Astaire were nearby, just not  _ where.  _

Swallowing with a dry throat, Astaire slowly raised his Zweihander over his shoulder and began reaching for the shelving unit. If they weren’t going to move, he’d just have to convince them. 

His hand was stayed as the echoes of something else came bounding down the hallway. Something with heavy footfalls, ragged breathing, and a familiar-yet-unfamiliar odour that announced its presence before it had even arrived. The same one that had caught Astaire’s attention in the park. 

All of a sudden the horde outside flew into a frenzy. Astaire and Rise both shrunk back as the groans and gurgles from outside turned into agonised screams, concealing what sounded like growls and snarls underneath the flurry of disgusting, meaty crushing and cracking sounds.

There began to be less screams with time, until the final one was silenced, leaving only that ragged, harsh breathing in their wake. 

“Is… is it over?” Rise dared to ask. Astaire didn’t dare to answer. 

A bang at the door. The shelves protested. Another slam. The door shifted in slightly. 

Astaire took a step forward, sword at the ready. He ushered Rise back towards the furthest wall with his other hand, just as the final slam at the door knocked the shelves flat on the floor and presented what was on the other side. 

It was low to the ground, standing on all fours. A hide of thick, shaggy brown fur coated tip to tail, which stood up to attention at the back of the beast’s figure. Forelegs ended in thick, razor-sharp claws, and ribbons of saliva dripped hungrily from an elongated muzzle, filled with rows of glistening fangs, below piercing yellow eyes.

A wolf. Werewolf. Whatever they’d been called in the theatre. It blocked the only way out of the storeroom, and prowled slowly towards the young couple. 

“I suppose, Ms. Kujikawa…” Astaire began low and slow, bringing his off-hand to the tip of his blade as a small bed of flames began to manifest in his palm. “...we’re both about to have your question from earlier answered.” With one swift motion he brought his hand down from the tip and across the surface of the sword, the fire in his hand catching and spreading across the blade until it fully engulfed it, and grabbed the grip below his handguard. 

The werewolf lunged from its standing position. Astaire lunged from his, swinging his sword in a wide arc above his head as he aimed to send the snarling menace back to whatever hellscape it had crawled out of.

***

If Rise had learned nothing else from the events of the night, it was that Astaire was a man of his word. She’d been in danger, and he really  _ hadn’t  _ accepted any other outcome than victory.

He hadn’t specified exactly what state he’d be in afterwards, however. Hence why Rise was now operating as a crutch. 

His coat was in tatters, as were his shirt and trousers. Scratches and stabs littered his torso and arms, three parallel claw marks bled down his face, and a large set of teeth marks perforated the flesh around his left ankle. They were so large, in fact, that Rise wondered how he hadn’t lost his leg altogether.

Whatever the case, he was still walking. Barely. His left arm remained slung over Rise’s shoulders while his other one dragged his Zweihander along behind him. His head was hung low, hair, drenched in sweat, either sticking to his head or concealing his face from sight as he struggled to catch a breath. Hidden or not, it was no secret that he was in bad shape.. 

Another zombie came sprinting in from their right flank. It was reduced to a bloody smear on the wall as the Zweihander rose, thrashed it away, then fell back behind Astaire as if nothing had happened, bringing forth another fit of uneven breathing and hacking coughs. 

Still as fiercely protective as ever, even if he wasn’t expending energy to talk to her. What a trooper. 

The deep-set panic from earlier had hit a fever pitch within Rise. Instead of being unable to register what was happening around her, she now felt hyper-aware of everything that could potentially go wrong. Thankfully, it made getting to the platform that much easier. As far as brands of panic went, it was proving to be the more useful of the many she’d tasted during the events of the night alone. 

“Don’t worry Astaire-kun--” She stopped to heft his arm further over her shoulder and get a stronger grip as they hobbled onward. “--The platform shouldn’t be too far away now.” In fact, once they hopped the turnstile - not the easiest feat given Astaire’s state - it should’ve been one set of stairs away. 

Rise cleared the turnstile easily, but Astaire instead opted to limply flop over from one side to the other, like a ragdoll that’d been dropped down a set of stairs. The amount of bloodstains he left on the floor as she assisted him in standing up again didn’t fill her with much confidence for the journey to come. 

The stairs were a simple, slow and steady matter. But about halfway down, Rise couldn’t help but do some pondering. It had been a while since the last zombie had tried hunting them both down, and if ever there was a worse place to be assaulted, it’d have been on the stairs. Bad footing, only one quick way to go, it would’ve been a nightmare. And yet none of them had come. Did they get rid of all the fast ones, perhaps? Furthermore, why hadn’t they seen any of the slower ones like before? Were they only up on the street? Were they still following them FROM the street?

All these questions and more plagued Rise on the way down as she tried to take her mind off how heavy Astaire was beginning to feel. But they were getting close to the bottom now. A few more steps and they’d be strolling through unspeakably dark subway tunnels in a meagre attempt to get back home so they could…

The more Rise thought about her plan, the worse she felt. A feeling which wasn’t assisted as the subway platform finally came into view.

Hundreds of the slower, shambling zombies from earlier lolled around the platform, bumping shoulders and wandering idly. There was barely even anything of the actual platform visible to the naked eye. While most of them continued to wander, those that were closest to the stairs ground to a halt, their barely-aware heads turning to face the fresh meat that was coming down to meet them.

“Oh god, please no…” Rise began as she tried to take a step back up. As it turned out, doing that while supporting someone as heavy as Astaire wasn’t an easy undertaking. “Pssst! Astaire-kun!” She tugged on the sleeve of his off-arm roughly. “I know this is gonna be hard, but we’ve gotta clear a way over to the tracks. Could you try--” 

Without warning, Astaire bounded out of Rise’s grasp, leaping from the step they’d occupied with his Zweihander held aloft, crashing down on the small troupe of undead that had congregated around the bottom of the steps below them. There was a rush of dry heat and fire as he forced his free hand to the ground, summoning pillars of fire which spread out and torched anything dumb and dead enough to be nearby. 

But that wasn’t all of them dealt with, not by a long shot. So he took off anew, with naught but a grunt.

Rise watched from the stairs with concern etched on her face as he exploded into a storm of steel and anger, whipping about his Zweihander with one hand like it barely weighed anything at all. He parted entire groups, grabbed ‘survivors’ and threw them clean across the length of the platform, and crashed his sword into the ground to finish off what stragglers hadn’t died immediately, exhibiting such force that Rise swore he risked collapsing the entire subway system altogether. 

He was winning by a landslide, but that didn’t make her feel much better. If anything,  _ how  _ he was winning made her feel worse. He was out of control. Untamed. Like a balloon that’d been overstuffed with air and had rocketed around the room, leaving a trail of blood and chaos in its wake. He wasn’t moving like he usually did. Didn’t  _ sound  _ like he usually did in combat. Something was still wrong. 

But whatever was wrong with him, it cleaned up. Not a single grisly ghoul remained intact. The platform was awash with blood. Body parts of every kind, hacked into every shape and size thought possible, carpeted the floor wherever space remained to occupy. In the middle of it all, Astaire stood. Back arched, arms hanging, taking in ragged, painful sounding breaths as quickly as he could gulp them down. 

As she tiptoed down the remaining steps, across the deluge of gore, Rise dared open her mouth to ask if Astaire was alright, right before he buckled in the middle, shivering frantically and emitting a shaking, choking breath through chattering teeth, which quickly transitioned into wet, gargling coughs. Blood jettisoned from his mouth as the cough seemed to worsen immediately, working its way down to his chest and leaving his throat ragged with each convulsion they caused. It was so bad, in fact, that his Zweihander plummeted from his hand to the floor, shattering whatever sections of the floor it landed on with its considerable weight.

Barely winning that scuffle with the wolf earlier hadn’t been able to pry it from his hands. Whatever was wrong with him  _ now,  _ Rise could scarcely begin to imagine. “Hey, hey!” She began, resting one hand on Astaire’s back and the other on his undulating chest. “It’s alright now, everything’s gone. We can duck into the tunnels now.” She assured him, working her grip around so that his arm was over her shoulder again. “We’ve just gotta keep going for now, that’s all. Try not to get so worked up, alright?” 

Pffft. Rich words, coming from her. 

Nevertheless, Astaire managed a shivering nod and nothing more as Rise began guiding him towards the railway tracks. Leaving the Zweihander behind didn’t seem ideal, but if he couldn’t hold it, he couldn’t hold it, simple as that. He had plenty of other weapons squirreled away in his coat anyway, if the need arose.

Rise just prayed to whoever was listening that it wouldn’t. 

Down onto the tracks, Rise hauled herself towards the pitch darkness of the railway’s tunnels once and for all. 

***

The underground tunnels were so thoroughly dark that they made Rise wonder if she’d ever see the sun again. It already felt like it’d been an eternity since she saw it last. She’d resorted to using her phone’s flashlight to provide some meagre illumination, but it simply highlighted how much longer there was to go. 

Matters weren’t helped as she felt more of Astaire’s weight shift onto her shoulders. His steps had become less frequent, and his breaths were becoming his frequent, but longer and more drawn out. Rise tried not to imagine how much blood he’d lost since they began walking, or check back over her shoulder to check. 

If any hope had been left dwindling in Rise’s heart beforehand, it was finding the weight of worry and despair increasingly hard to hold up. 

“I think the next station isn’t too far off.” Rise whispered in Astaire’s ear. No response. “I’ll try and patch you up when we’re back home. I’m pretty sure my first aid skills aren’t that terrible.” She tried to chuckle. No response. Having recouped from how many she’d lost earlier, the tears began coming back to Rise’s eyes anew. “...Please tell me you’re alright, Astaire-kun…” 

No response. 

Rise dried her eyes with her sleeve, trying not to collapse and break down from the hopelessness of it all, when something else stopped her in her tracks. 

Moans and groaning. Lots of it. Echoing down from further into the tunnel.

“No… No, it can’t be. It  _ couldn’t  _ be!” Rise began to babble as she staggered backwards. “What the hell would that many people be doing down here anyway?! Why would they  _ all  _ be coming this way?!” In a feeble attempt to prolong what was quickly appearing to be inevitable, Rise hauled herself and Astaire around and doubled back as quickly as she could. Only to be met with more moaning coming from the other side as well.

Oh God. They were surrounded. 

“W-Wha… What are we--?  _ How  _ are--?” Rise babbled further, feeling like her bulging eyes were rolling around in her head as she tried to find a single thought to begin focusing on, and failed every time. Her breaths hitched once again as she came to one soul-crushing, sickening conclusion deep in the pit of her stomach. 

This was it. This was where it all ended for she and Astaire both. She couldn’t fight, and he was in no fit state to do so either. There was no way out. 

“A-Astaire-kun…” Rise began, shuddering violently as her face screwed up and the tears flowed faster than ever. “I… I-” She stifled a hiccup and a sob in tandem. “I don’t wanna die yet…” 

From over her shoulder, she felt the muscles under Astaire’s sleeve slowly tense. She heard the tatters of his coat begin to shift as he gradually began supporting his own weight once more. He was still kicking after all! It was a second wind! 

Or so it appeared, anyway. For the light from Rise’s phone still illuminated the path in front of her, making seeing anything outside the light that little bit harder. But she caught glimpses. Outlines. Silhouettes. Enough to indicate that all was not as it seemed. 

As Astaire’s hand at the end of her shouldered arm began to rise, it appeared longer than usual, with longer fingernails.  _ Much  _ longer. 

The cuts and gaps in his coat began to fill with something coarse, rough and long. Like strands of hair. 

_ “Rise…”  _ He uttered, his voice deep and beastial. 

With every ounce of heat having fled her body, freezing her blood solid and reducing her skin to pure white, Rise dared look at Astaire directly. 

The last thing she saw was his deformed, elongated face, teeth bared and eyes wide and ravenous, before he emitted a snarl and sunk his newly-formed fangs deep into her throat.

***

_ “FUCK!”  _ Yosuke screeched, where Chie and Teddie had simply resorted to clinging to him and screaming aloud. Understandable, after seeing one of their friends straight-up murder the other on film. He took his eyes off the TV for the first time in quite a while to turn around and glare accusingly at Astaire and Rise behind him. “Who’s goddamn idea for an ending was  _ that?!  _ Shit, I feel like I’m gonna throw up!” 

Rise had been holding in her reactions throughout the entire course of the movie, but couldn’t resist any longer. She fell back on the tatami mat flooring and clutched at her stomach as she bellowed out a monsoon of hearty laughter. “Y-Y-Y… The looks on your f-faces!” She just barely spat out as she struggled to breathe between laughs. “All… All from a goofy little home-made horror movie!” Was as far as she got before she devolved into laughter again. 

Less amused was her co-star beside her, who looked a little green in the cheeks. “I didn’t think much of it when Ms. Mashita was filming. After seeing it properly on display, it  _ is  _ a tad more grotesque than I’d pictured...” He said, making sure to avert his gaze from the screen. Imaging such a thing happening for real made him feel like he’d been poisoned.

“I thought it was wonderful!” Yukiko whooped, applauding the two starring leads with a wide smile. “I wasn’t sure how well a viewing party with just us at the Inn would go over, but that was great! Can we watch it again?” 

“NO!” Chie roared from Yosuke’s side. “God, Yukiko, you are  _ so weird _ !” 

“Am not! Kanji-kun agrees with me, don’t you, Kanji-kun?” She asked Kanji earnestly. 

Kanji didn’t respond, instead opting to sit cross-legged and arms crossed, boring a hole in the wall behind the TV by staring at it, face like stone. “Mr. Tatsumi? Are you still lucid?” Astaire asked as he leaned over and gently patted him on the knee. 

_ “AUGH!”  _ Kanji yelped, springing back into life like he was a mousetrap someone had stuck their fingers into. “You tryna’ give me a frickin’ heart attack?!” He glared accusingly, shrinking Astaire back to where he’d been sitting himself. Only once he’d been revived did Kanji actually blink and begin taking in his surroundings again. In particular, he noticed one pertinent detail which had gone astray. “Hold up, where’d Naoto go?” 

True enough, now that he brought the matter up, Naoto was the only member of the team who was no longer present. She’d  _ definitely  _ been around beforehand, as Rise clearly recalled trying to convince her to squeeze into a kimono - citing that  _ everyone  _ was going to have one on and being the odd one out would suck, plus Kanji would think it was adorable - and succeeding somewhere along the line. “Aww, I didn’t think Naoto would be the type to get so easily spooked!” She snickered. “You should go looking for her, Kanji. Maybe pat her head a little, give her a hug to calm down…” 

She’d only got halfway done with the sentence before Kanji was on his feet and trying to hide how beet-red he’d gone. “S-Sure, I’ll look-- B-But not because of that other stuff, ‘kay?!” He made sure to say before darting off into the depths of the Amagi Inn as quickly as he dared.

“Really though, I’m surprised that was so well-made.” Yu smiled, as calm as could be. “I take it you had help from the people you work with at the studio?” 

Rise nodded happily. “Mm-hmm! It helps when you have someone as friendly and well-connected as Kanami-chan convincing everyone to lend a hand!” 

Having finally screamed enough of his lungs out that he couldn’t scream anymore, Teddie unhooked himself from Yosuke’s side and joined in too. “I think the most impressive part was getting Stairry-kun to go along with all those flirty scenes you put in!” He leaned in and whispered to Rise,  _ “Did you get a stunt double?”  _

The matter must’ve been outweighed by all the horror elements succeeding said scenes, because when recalling how many there were, Astaire went the same shade Kanji had just gone and hid behind one of his hands. “...Ms. Kujikawa told me she’d take all of them out.” 

“And you  _ believed  _ her?” Teddie said incredulously, leaving Astaire to bury his head ever further into his hand. 

“It upped the drama! I  _ had  _ to keep them in!” Rise insisted, stealing a cheeky glance at Astaire and smiling to herself anyway. 

Yu raised a hand to hold back a laugh of his own. “I think it worked. I actually don’t think I’d turn down watching it another time myself, now that I think about it.” 

From across the room, Chie frowned and stared daggers and Yu and Yukiko both. “You’re  _ both  _ weird. Yeesh.” 

The thought of watching Rise sobbing and breaking down before he brutally executed her a second time over wasn’t one Astaire relished the thought of, even if he’d been the one to help make it. “If you plan on doing so, I think I may take a dip in the hot springs for the time being. Please excuse me.” He said before ducking out of the room and sliding the door over behind him. 

The night’s air had a chilly nip to it. The taste of incoming winter, as Astaire had come to recognise it. He savoured the sensation as he stuffed his hands in his sleeves and strolled off, listening to the quieting banter of his remaining friends as they replayed the short film once again. 

_ “Wait a minute, can you really cry on command, Rise-chan?” _ __   
  


_ “You bet I can! Just watch this!”  _

Frankly, he’d had enough crying Rise faces for tonight. Or any other night for the rest of his life, for that matter. Right now, a good soak sounded like just the right thing to get his mind off the whole affair. He strolled peaceably down the halls towards the hot spring, taking in the gorgeous moonlit scenery outside as he--

_ “Agh!”  _ A sudden pain shot through Astaire’s right side as he passed by the window, like a crossbow bolt had shot in between his ribs, and something alive had slipped inside the wound it left. The pain spread down to his leg, and up to his arm, down to his right hand. “What in blazes is this…?” Astaire grunted to himself as the pain worsened incrementally. He looked down at his hand, where the pain felt like it was shooting from his fingertips, and gawked at what he saw. 

His fingernails were growing. They were growing quickly. A thin layer of hair was beginning to form on both his fingers and the back of his hand, leading up towards his forearm.

Looking outside, a grim realisation came to light. 

It was Halloween night, and the moon was full.

**Author's Note:**

> Gee, I wonder if this was influenced by anything. All I'd need to make this complete is Vincent Price cackling at the end.  
If you read this through to the end, thank you very much for giving me the time of day.  
And if you happen to be reading this in October specifically, Happy Halloween, too.


End file.
